Today, more than 50 wineries are spread across New Mexico with 1,200 acres of planted vineyards. Many offer tasting rooms for a chance to sample their wines and to take home the ones that make you swoon. Bill Smith takes us on a summer tasting tour to help you sort out your seasonal sipping.
Spend the Summer at These New Mexico Wineries
Lescombes Family Vineyards
The Lescombes emigrated from Burgundy to Deming in 1981 and set down both familial and vinicultural roots. Today, their empire includes over forty different wines under many labels, as well as several dining establishments under the family banner.
On a recent visit to the Hervé Wine Bar – the family’s northern New Mexico outpost – their newest release, the 2024 Sauvignon Blanc under their “Heritage” label, was on offer. It’s a perfect summer wine for portal sipping. Gold colored with flashes of luminescent lime, the nose is grassy and floral. On the palate, green apple and a hint of grapefruit are accompanied by a touch of salinity and minerality. Serve this wine with grilled oysters and a smokey red chile-spiked mignonette for a start to al fresco dining.
Their “631 Signature” label 2023 Chenin Blanc is another standout for summer drinking. Aromas of honeydew and tropical fruits give way to a lush experience on the palette with flavors of apple and tropical fruits and a wonderfully balanced and bright acidity. For those into unfussed-with winemaking techniques, Lescombes describes this bottling as one of their natural, minimal intervention wines. It would be a wonderful starter to the evening, served alongside a plate of earthy and aged cheeses – think aged Manchego and a coffee-rubbed cheddar – with sourdough and local honey on the side.
Vara Winery
Founded in 2013, Vara produces an extensive line of wines, most of which are made from grapes grown outside of New Mexico. However, you can still drink uber-local at Vara with two wines made specifically with fruit grown in the state: their 2024 Rosé and the 2023 New Mexico Sparkling Brut.
Winemaker Laurent Gruet (yes, that Gruet) has once again found magic in his new home at Vara with the 2023 NM Sparkling Brut. Composed of 72% Chenin Blanc, 18% Listan Prieto, and 10% Pinot Meunier, it is done in the traditional Méthode Champenoise style. Golden straw-colored with notes of citrus and honeysuckle, this wine has flavors of green apple, melon, and pleasant salinity. I love the inclusion of Listan Prieto in this blend as it is the original Mission grape that was brought here centuries ago and creates a rootedness in place that makes this bubbly even more special. This is a Sunday summer brunch sparkling wine with asparagus and bacon frittata or perhaps more extravagantly, with creamy soft scrambled eggs studded with caviar and crème fraiche.
The 2024 NM Rosé is pure summer. Salmon colored with aromas of fresh strawberries, those same strawberries translate into a fruit-forward wine with bright acidity. A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Refosco, this wine is wonderful on its own, or consider adding some macerated strawberries and soda water to create that perfect summer spritzer.
You can enjoy these wines by the glass or bottle at Vara’s Santa Fe Tasting Room on the corner of West San Francisco and North Guadalupe streets. The tapas are also exceptional here and they offer what is perhaps Santa Fe’s most excellently curated charcuterie board to complement their wine service.
Jaramillo Vineyards
The Jaramillo family’s history of wine making in the state goes back to before prohibition when Leopoldo Jaramillo was the largest wine producer in the Middle Rio Grande Valley. Today, Leopoldo’s grandson Robert and his wife, Barbara, are producing some wonderful and diverse bottlings from their 10,000 vines planted on their 10-acre parcel just north of Belen.
I am especially partial to Jaramillo’s red varietal wines, including the Tempranillo and the more obscure indigenous varietal, Norton. Their 2018 Tempranillo Reserva is a lighter bodied, earthy wine, with grippy tannins as well as an abundance of black cherry and ripe dark berry flavors. The wine’s complexity elevates the barrel aging in well-toasted American oak barrels.
If you’ve never experienced the Norton grape, I encourage you to explore this big, dark, brooding varietal that is uniquely American. Jaramillo’s 2021 bottling is, well, big, dark, and brooding in the most delicious of ways. Aromas of ripe berries and a bit of spice, this is full throttle fruit on the palate in a way you might never have previously tasted.
Both these wines are food wines and would be the perfect accompaniment to a summer evening barbecue with thick, grilled rib eyes and blue-cheese spiked red-skin potato salad.
Let these recommendations be your initial guide to New Mexico wines and then explore to your heart’s content, starting at the Santa Fe Wine Festival held again this year at El Rancho de Las Golondrinas on July 5th and 6th. Salud!
Story by Bill Smith
Photos Courtesy of Lescombes Family Vineyards, Vara Winery, Jaramillo Vineyards
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